Extraits

"Il se précipita hors du lit, traversa le palier et fit irruption dans la chambre de Leo, l'attrapant alors qu'il commençait à s'agiter.

- Chut, Leo. Tout va bien.

Les yeux de Léo s'ouvrirent. Il rencontra le regard de Charlie pendant une brève seconde qui arrêta son coeur avant que son expression se vide et qu'il se perde à nouveau. Charlie s'accroupit près du lit, la main serrée autour du poignet de Léo. Il enfonça son pouce dans le point de pulsation et compta les battement de coeur de Leo qui battait à toute allure.

- Allez, Leo. Réveille-toi si c'est trop mauvais. Ce n'est pas réel, je te le promets."

— Tu vas déménager ?

Leo sursauta. Il n’avait pas remarqué que Charlie avait envahi en toute décontraction son espace personnel.

— Quoi ?

— Tu sais, pour échapper au garçon gay.

— Garçon gay ?

Leo rit, il ne put s’en empêcher.

— À quoi ça servirait ?

Charlie tressaillit.

— Tu n’as pas besoin d’agir comme un connard à ce sujet. J’ai dit que j’étais désolé.

— Je ne veux pas que tu sois désolé.

Leo se détourna.

Charlie attrapa son visage dans sa paume chaude.

— Pourquoi ?

— Parce que…

À l’intérieur se trouvaient deux photographies : l’une d’une petite fille angélique et l’autre d’un garçon séduisant. Le garçon, grand et mince, aux cheveux bouclés et sauvages et aux yeux verts aiguisés, était magnifique. Charlie compara la photo avec celle de sa sœur. Même s’ils avaient des cheveux différents, leur teint clair les trahissait en tant que frère et sœur.

Ça, et ils avaient tous les deux l’air vraiment malheureux.

— Vous voulez qu’il partage mon espace ?

— Pour commencer, dit Kate. Nous arrangerons cela dès que possible, mais interagir avec toi pourrait lui faire du bien.

— Interagir ?

— Un contact. Des conversations. Ces enfants ont traversé beaucoup de choses, et leurs dossiers disent qu’aucun d’eux ne dort bien. La présence d’Andy t’a aidé à t’apaiser quand tu es arrivé chez nous.

Kate supplia Andy du regard, qui appuya ses dires.

— C’est vrai. Tu as hurlé pendant les premières nuits avec nous, puis je suis venu pour les vacances d’été et voilà : tu as dormi comme un bébé.

— Je ne m’en souviens pas.

Andy haussa les épaules.

— Pourquoi t’en souviendrais-tu ? C’était juste quelques semaines, mais ça a marché. Ça pourrait aider ce gamin aussi.

Reg acquiesça d’un signe de tête.

The teacher met him at the door. « You must be Leo. Take a seat next to Charlie. I’ll get you a book and some pencils. »

Leo followed the teacher’s gaze to where Charlie was sitting at the back of the classroom, head down, already engrossed in whatever he was working on. There was an empty stool beside him. Deliberate? Stuff it. After a day of being stuck beside a bunch of numpties, Leo didn’t much care.

He made his way across the classroom and dropped onto the stool. The teacher placed a sketchbook and a few pencils on the bench. « Charlie can fill you in on what we’re doing. »

The teacher walked away without another word. Leo watched him go. That was a new one. Most teachers had bent his ear for twenty minutes before they’d let him sit down.

« We’re sketching the view through the window, » Charlie said. « You can draw the science block to the left, or the memorial garden to the right. »

Leo peered at Charlie’s sketchbook. « What are you drawing? »

« The duck in the pond. »

« Where’s the pond? »

Charlie shrugged. « Who cares? »

Leo grinned. Finally. A sentiment he could relate to. « How come your name is de Sousa? Thought you’d have taken Reg’s name by now. »

« Why would you think that? » Charlie kept his gaze on his work. « You hate Reg, remember? »

« Says who? »

« Says you. Yesterday. »

« Didn’t. »

« Yes, you did. After he gave you your school blazer. You called him a prick and told him you hated him. »

Oops. Leo had muttered the words under his breath when he’d been halfway upstairs. He’d forgotten Charlie had been behind him. « So? Doesn’t mean you hate him too. Call him ‘Daddy’ don’t you? »

« Not always. Sometimes I call him Reg, and he doesn’t care, because he loves me. »

« ‘Because he loves me,’ » Leo mocked. « ’Cause your life’s a fucking fairy tale, ain’t it? »

Charlie scowled and looked like he wanted to be a dick right back, but he didn’t. He said nothing and went back to his work, and the silence stung. Leo could handle a row, or a punch up, but the guilt in his gut at hurting Charlie’s feelings bothered him more than he cared to admit.

« Where does ‘de Sousa’ come from? Is it Spanish or something? »

For a long moment, Leo feared Charlie wouldn’t answer, then he set his pencil down and picked up another. « It’s Brazilian, » he said. « I was born in São Paulo. »

« São Paulo? »

« Yup. Got dumped in an orphanage when I was a baby. »

Wow. Leo had figured Fliss and Charlie had to have come from shitty backgrounds to end up in foster care, but he’d imagined something closer to home. « Do you remember it? »

Charlie finally looked Leo’s way. « Nope. My first memory is drawing on my bedroom wall with one of Kate’s lipsticks. »

The art teacher cut off Leo’s reply by tapping Leo’s closed sketchbook. « Make a start please, Mr. Hendry. I want to see an outline by the end of the lesson. » Leo glanced up, irritated. The teacher smiled and held out a pencil. « Come on. If I don’t see some lines, I’ll have to find you a seat at the front. »

At the front? Stuff that too. Leo liked people where he could see them. He opened the book and considered the view through the window. Neither option Charlie had mentioned seemed worth a punt, and Leo hadn’t put a pencil to paper in . . . shit, he couldn’t even remember. Not that he’d ever been particularly good at it.

Why the hell did I take art again?

He had no idea. Choosing his GCSE options at the end of year nine seemed so long ago—

Charlie nudged him. « Just draw something, will you? You’ll be in enough trouble as it is, if Mrs. Parkin reports you. »

« What do you care? »

« Fine. I don’t care. Do what you want and end up a loser like Wayne bloody Murphy. »

« Who? »

« Enough. » The art teacher had come back. « Charlie, set a good example, please. I expect better of you. »

The reprimand went over Leo’s head, but Charlie frowned, clearly rattled. He hunched over his work, blocking Leo, and didn’t speak again for the rest of the lesson.

Leo entertained himself by sketching the waist-length French plait of the girl in front of him. When that was done, he slumped forward on the table, pillowed his head on his good arm, and took in his classmates—the girls first, all nine of them. A blonde across the room shot him a shy smile. Leo rolled his eyes and looked away. Attention from girls came easy. Shame he didn’t want it.

He turned his consideration to the boys—just four in total, minus Charlie —two blonds, a redhead, and a boy with such short hair it was hard to tell the colour. None of them held Leo’s interest. Not like Charlie.

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie.

His leg was so close, Leo felt his body heat everywhere, and considered what it would feel like for real, if their legs actually touched, even with the barrier of their school trousers.

Fuck.

Leo sat up and forced himself to shift away from Charlie. Across the room, the blonde girl was glancing his way again, except she wasn’t looking at Leo, she was looking at Charlie, and Charlie was grinning right back. An odd pain flared in Leo’s veins. He’d never seen Charlie smile like that, eyes shining, teeth pure white against his tanned skin. Why hadn’t he seen Charlie smile like that?

’Cause you’ve only known him a week, douche bag.

Charlie de Sousa made himself comfortable on the bottom of the stairs. The third step up was the best one. The bottom two creaked like crazy, and though he wouldn’t get in real trouble for eavesdropping on his parents, he didn’t want to interrupt their discussion before they got to the juicy bit.

« It’s a risk, Kate, » Reg said. Charlie could almost see him running his hands through his unruly mop of white hair. « Taking one traumatised child is a challenge in itself, but two? I don’t know. Do we even have room? »

« Of course we have room. » Charlie heard Kate get up and pace around, like she always did when she was annoyed. « The boy can go in the study. We’ll just have to move the computer downstairs. »

« It’s not ideal. »

« ‘Ideal’? For God’s sake, Reg. Nothing ever is. If it was, these kids wouldn’t need us in the first place. »

Silence. Charlie strained his ears and wondered if the conversation was continuing in sign language. Kate was hard of hearing, and could read lips and speak, but she and Reg often continued conversations in sign language if they didn’t want the rest of the house to eavesdrop. Charlie considered creeping to the door and taking a peek, but Reg always caught him when he did that. The bloke had ninja senses.

Someone in the dining room sighed; Charlie couldn’t tell who. Then Kate spoke again. « Look, I know it’s a big ask, but these kids have been through the mill. They need a safe place to heal, and we can give them that. I know we can. »

« What about the family we already have? » Reg countered. « It says here that both kids have medical issues from that fire, and the boy was in trouble at school before that . . . fighting and drinking. Truancy. Is it really fair to bring that into our home? »

« We can help them, » Kate said. « And we should ask the others before we make a decision. It’s how we do things in this house. »

Reg’s dry laugh told Charlie that Kate had got her way. He tensed, ready to flee upstairs, but the dining room door opened before he could move. Reg fixed him with a stare that said he’d known Charlie was there all along. « Go fetch your sister. I’m going to call Andy. Family meeting as soon as we’re all here. »